Great Expectations Chapter 12 Summary
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Pip is pretty sure that he's either going to be thrown in prison for life or be pummeled to a pulp by a gang of rich kids for having hit (twice) the random, pale little boy in Miss Havisham's garden.
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But nothing happens!
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When he returns to Miss Havisham's, Pip visits the scene of the fight. He covers up some dried blood on the pavement with some leaves and calls it a day.
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Pip starts a new ritual at Satis House—he pushes Miss Havisham in a garden-chair-on-wheels (you know, a wheelchair) around and around her dressing room and wedding feast room. For almost three hours.
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During one of these indoor adventures, Miss Havisham notices that Pip is tall, and she asks him what he's going to do with his life. He tells her he intends to apprentice with Joe.
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The ritual continues over the course of many months.
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Estella remains frosty, and Miss Havisham continues to give her jewels and to coach her in the ways of breaking men's hearts.
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One day, Miss Havisham tells Pip to bring Joe with him the next time he visits.
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When Pip relays the message at home, Mrs. Joe is furious that she isn't invited. Her method of coping is to tear up the entire house and subject everything to a deep cleaning, which is at least better than some we can think of.
Great Expectations Chapter 13 Summary
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On the day of the visit, Joe works himself up into a tizzy. He can't decide what to wear, and puts on his finest digs.
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He pops his collar to seem more gentlemanly, but the poppage just pushes up the hair in the back of his head so that he looks like a bird.
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Pip wishes Joe would just be himself and wear his normal workday clothes—as though he doesn't understand exactly what Joe is feeling.
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Mrs. Joe, Joe, and Pip walk into town with Mrs. Joe at the helm. She's wearing a big sun bonnet and is carrying an umbrella and lots of other random items. Pip thinks she's popping her proverbial collar for all the town to see.
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Mrs. Joe hangs with Mr. Pumblechook during the visit, but she's still ticked off that she's not invited.
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Estella opens that gate for Pip and Joe, but she doesn't say anything, nor does she look at them. Surprise, surprise.
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Estella leads the Gargery men down the dark, labyrinthine passages.
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Joe is a mess. When she asks him a question, he tells Pip the answer instead of answering her directly, and he tries to talk all elegant but just ends up sounding, um, incomprehensible.
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Pip is MORTIFIED.
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Finally, Miss Havisham tells Joe that Pip has earned a reward: 25 pounds as an investment in Pip's apprenticeship in the smithy.
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(Apprentices usually had to pay money to get training, kind of like having to pay for school, except you learn a useful trade. The money covered the apprentice's expenses, like food and rent.)
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Joe is flabbergasted. That's a LOT of dough.
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Miss Havisham sends Pip away, and she tells Joe never to expect more money from her than what she's just given.
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As they leave Satis House, Joe is dumbfounded by the amount of money he's holding, but Pip is crestfallen: he thought that Miss Havisham was going to adopt him or something, and instead he's just lost Estella for good.
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When they arrive at Mr. Pumblechook, Joe conjures up a story about how Miss Havisham did not feel well enough to entertain a lady such as one Mrs. Joe Gargery, but that she sends her best regards. Total poppycock, but Mrs. Joe eats it up.
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When Mrs. Joe and Mr. Pumblechook learn that Miss Havisham has given a gift of 25 pounds, they go CRAZY.
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Pip is taken to the court that very day to be sworn in as an official blacksmith's apprentice, thus binding him to the trade for the rest of his days.
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That night, the whole family celebrates at the Three Jolly Bargemen with a big feast.
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Everyone but Pip, that is. He's just depressed.
Great Expectations Chapter 14 Summary
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Pip is sad. He hates his home, because it reminds him of how far away he's from the wealth and privilege of Satis House.
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(Seriously, Pip, we think you're better off.)
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He feels like a black cloud has settled just above his head, following him wherever he goes and, like a big, heavy curtain, has barred him from continuing on the path toward becoming a gentleman.
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Sometimes, he looks at the marshes near his house, and he thinks that they're like a metaphor for his own future. They're flat, low, dark, misty, and they lead only to the ocean.
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So many analogies!
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Narrator Pip interjects, telling us that his one consolation in life is that he never told Joe how he felt.
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When Pip is working in the forge at night, he and Joe will often sing "Old Clem," and Pip remembers singing the very same song with Estella and Miss Havisham.
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Often, he imagines Estella looking in at him from outside of the smithy. How embarrassing!
Great Expectations Chapter 15 Summary
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When Pip has learned about all he can from Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, he begs Biddy to teach him everything she knows. Which she does. Because unlike Estella, Biddy is actually a nice girl/woman.
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He also tries to teach Joe everything that he learns in a way of helping Joe become more educated, and, thus, more worthy of Pip's company. How nice.
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Pip and Joe go to the old Battery on the marshes for their lessons on Sundays, but Joe isn't the most attentive student.
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Pip, too, spends most of his time looking at the sails on the horizon and dreaming of Estella and Satis House.
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One Sunday, when Pip and Joe are hanging out at the battery, Pip asks Joe if he can take half a day off of work so that he can go visit Miss Havisham.
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Joe doesn't think this is a good idea. He remembers Miss Havisham's last words warning Joe never to ask for more money than she's already given. Joe is worried that if Pip visits her, she will feel like he's returned to butter her up for more dough.
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After they go back and forth, Joe finally agrees to give Pip a half day.
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Pip isn't the only one at the smithy. Joe also employs a burly, gruff looking man named Orlick. Orlick hits things with his hammer in the smithy (wait, isn't the point of a smithy…?) and he's not too friendly.
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When Orlick catches wind that Pip gets to take half a day off of work, Orlick has a conniption, extolling the inherent injustice of giving only one employee such a privilege.
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Joe is befuddled, but then decides to give everybody a holiday in order to make everybody happy.
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Mrs. Joe, however, overhears this ruling and bursts in upon the scene yelling and shouting at Joe for being such a fool as to let his employees walk all over him.
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She calls Orlick names, so Orlick calls Mrs. Joe names and threatens her with violence.
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Joe finally has to challenge Orlick to a fight to satisfy Mrs. Joe's notions of honor, and he knocks Orlick down faster than you can say "smithy."
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We're guessing that the village blacksmith would win most fights.
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Mrs. Joe faints, and Orlick slouches away with a bloody nose.
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When Pip arrives at Miss Havisham's, Sarah Pocket almost refuses to let him in.
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Miss Havisham tells him she won't give any more money, but Pip assures her he's just come to say hi and thanks.
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Miss Havisham catches Pip looking around the room for signs of Estella. Oh, ho ho! Sorry, dude. Estella is in France learning to be a beautiful, educated woman way out of his reach.
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As Pip is ejected onto the street, he feels even worse than he did before. We could have called that one, Pip.
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He walks around the main street of town, looking at all of the shop windows and thinking about what he'd buy for himself if he were a gentleman.
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Pip runs into Mr. Wopsle, who has just come out of the bookstore with a copy of The Tragedy of George Barnwell, a play. He invites Pip to come over to Mr. Pumblechook's house to read the play aloud. Fun times!
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Under normal circumstances, Pip would never, ever hang out with Pumblechook, but since he's feeling so sad, he decides to accept the invitation.
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The play reading doesn't end until 9:30 at night. He and Mr. Wopsle walk home together, and on their way they find Orlick crouching on the side of the road. It's a really misty night, so they can't tell what he's doing.
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Something seems off about the guy, but he tells them that convicts have escaped from the prison ships, and that the prison ships are firing cannons to warn the local area.
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The three men walk past the Three Jolly Bargemen, where there's mass chaos going on because of something that's happened at Pip's house.
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And that something is Pip's sister lying unconscious in the kitchen, hit hard on the back of her head.
Great Expectations Chapter 16 Summary
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There's a general consensus that one of the escaped convicts is to blame, since there's a convict's leg iron found at the scene of the crime.
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But it's weird. The attacker struck Mrs. Joe from the back and didn't take anything in the house.
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And it gets weirder: a prison ship guard says that the leg-iron wouldn't have been worn by a recent convict, since it's totally last year's model.
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Pip suspects either Orlick or the mysterious man who gave him the two one-pound notes.
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Sure, Orlick has the alibi of being out and about around town, but there was the little matter of him hiding out by the road.
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Plus, if the mysterious man were to have asked Mrs. Joe for his money, she would have given to him, since she tried to give it to him in the first place.
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In any case, the leg-iron is the one that his convict severed and left on the marshes those many years before. Pip feels REALLY guilty, like an accessory to his sister's assault.
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Mrs. Joe has lost her hearing and can hardly see, and she can't move or talk without great difficulty. The family gives her a chalk board, but they have a hard time figuring out what she writes/draws.
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Fortunately, Biddy comes to live with the Gargerys, and she understands Mrs. Joe really well.
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One day, Mrs. Joe draws a picture of a hammer, and Biddy eventually realizes that she's asking for Orlick.
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Orlick is brought to Mrs. Joe, and she's just delighted to see him. Orlick feels super awkward about the whole thing, but she asks for him every day.
Great Expectations Chapter 17 Summary
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Pip gets used to his blacksmith lifestyle, even if he's still a little mopey.
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He also starts to notice that Biddy is all grown up with fancy hair-dos and high heels and pretty eyes.
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One day, Pip is studying in the kitchen while Biddy sews near him, listening to him read aloud. She seems to be sponging up everything that he learns himself, all while taking care of daily domestic tasks, errands, and chores.
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Basically, we kind of wish we were reading more about her and less about Pip's whininess.
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Pip begins to think that Biddy must just be the perfect person to confide in, to express all of his melancholy emotions, as well as his hopes and dreams. (What, you say Biddy might have had hopes and dreams of her own?)
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On Sunday, the two of them take a summer stroll on the marshes. It's a beautiful day, but Pip finally confesses his deepest secret to Biddy: he wants to be a gentleman more than anything in the world.
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Uh, says Biddy, maybe you shouldn't spend your time wishing for something you won't ever have.
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No way. Someone once told him that he was common, and that comment has been haunting him ever since.
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Biddy tells him that the comment was neither polite nor true. She asks Pip who made the comment, and Pip tells her the most beautiful lady in the whole wide world said so, and he l-o-v-e-s her.
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Very gently, Biddy points out that probably the best thing to do is just ignore her, since she's not worthy of him anyway, but Pip ignores this excellent advice.
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Instead, he repays her by saying that he wishes he could make himself fall in love with her, because, if that were the case, everything would be okay for him.
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He's a real charmer, that Pip.
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Suddenly, Orlick shows up out of the graveyard and menaces them a little. Biddy tells Pip that she doesn't like Orlick. She tells him that Orlick likes her and flirts with her mercilessly, against her will.
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Ooh, Pip doesn't trust that guy.
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Pip realizes that he's starting to get used to the whole blacksmith thing, especially now that his sister is incapacitated. He begins to imagine himself living with Joe for the rest of his life and eventually marrying Biddy.
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And then everything changes.
Great Expectations Chapter 18 Summary
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Pip has been apprenticing for four years when, one Saturday night at the Three Jolly Bargemen, something happens.
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Pip and the boys are sitting around the fire listening to Mr. Wopsle give a dramatic reading about a recent murder when a mysterious man butts in and asks the group who they believe to be the murderer.
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After some very lawyerly cross-examination, the man says that he wants to speak with a blacksmith named Joe Gargery and his apprentice, Pip. Whaaaa?
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Pip, Joe, and the strange man walk home, where we find out that Mr. Mystery #2 is Mr. Jaggers, a London lawyer, who has come to tell Pip about his "great expectations."
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He's about to inherit a huge fortune and will be made into a London gentleman.
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!!!
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Mr. Jaggers offers Joe money to compensate for losing an apprentice, but he refuses—and he's not too happy about being offered it, either.
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Pip's benefactor will remain unknown to him until he/she chooses to reveal himself/herself, but in the meantime, Pip needs an education. How about Mr. Matthew Pocket, Miss Havisham's estranged relative, as a potential tutor?
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Pip accepts.
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Pip and Joe are speechless throughout this entire encounter.
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Mr. Jaggers gives Pip twenty pounds to buy new clothes, offers Joe money again, gets rejected—quite violently—again, and then heads off.
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Everyone is kind of blown away by this whole thing, but they try to be happy for Pip.
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In bed, he overhears Joe and Biddy saying nice things about him, and, for some reason, he's lonelier than he's ever been before in his entire life.
Great Expectations Chapter 19 Summary
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Pip feels better in the morning. He can't wait to get to London—and then come home and show off his new fancy gentlemanly self to the village.
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In a moving moment, Pip tells Joe he'll never forget him, but it feels a little contrived and insincere.
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Things go downhill, when Pip and Biddy get in a fight after Pip asks Biddy to teach Joe everything she knows so that he might be worthy of his society.
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Biddy tells Pip Joe is proud and that he might not want to be improved.
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You're just jealous, Pip says, and how Biddy keeps from slapping him we do not know.
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Pip gets himself all dressed up and decked out, and then visits Miss Havisham who already knows his situation. (Pip obviously thinks that this mysterious benefactor is Miss Havisham.) She flaunts him in front of Sarah Pocket to heat her jealousy.
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That night, Pip has wild anxiety dreams, but he holds it together until he's in the carriage—and then he starts crying. Hard.
Great Expectations Chapter 20 Summary
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It's a five hour carriage ride to London, and when Pip arrives in the big city, the country boy thinks that London is decidedly overrated. Everything is dirty, labyrinthine, and abrasive.
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The carriage driver delivers Pip to Jaggers' office, but not without mentioning how afraid he is of Jaggers. This perplexes Pip, but it also means that he doesn't have to tip the driver, since the driver is afraid of what Jaggers might do if he overcharges.
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Pip is greeted by a clerk who lets him know that Mr. Jaggers is in court, but that Pip can wait inside.
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There are lots of people around, all waiting for Mr. Jaggers.
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Pip waits in Mr. Jaggers' office, which is full of such delightful things as Mr. Jaggers' chair, which look likes a coffin, and two casts of gruesome, twitchy faces.
Great Expectations Chapter 21 Summary
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Wemmick comes to take Pip off. Wemmick is a square-looking man with a post-office mouth.
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He's a bit gruff and wears lots of "mourning" rings which makes Pip think that he's lost a lot of friends or family members.
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Wemmick and Pip arrive at Barnard's Inn, Pip's new London digs, and Pip is crestfallen. He was imagining his new apartment would put the Blue Boar to shame, but this place is more like a graveyard.
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They go up to Pip's apartment and see that Mr. Pocket, Junior has left a message for Pip saying he'll be right back.
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Pip says goodbye to Wemmick and shakes his hand. Wemmick is surprised by the handshaking, but leaves Pip pleasantly.
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Ugh, this place is dirty.
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Mr. Pocket, Junior arrives, bringing strawberries for Pip. Pip is flabbergasted by this random act of kindness.
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Turns out, Mr. Pocket, Junior is really cool and gives Pip a warm welcome. He can't afford anything better than this apartment, because his father doesn't make much money, but he promises to give Pip a tour of the city in the morning.
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Suddenly both men realize that they know each other: they got into a fight at Miss Havisham's many years ago. Remember?
Great Expectations Chapter 22 Summary
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Whoa!
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Herbert rewrites history a little bit and asks Pip to forgive him for beating him up, and Pip decides not to correct him.
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Herbert, like Pip, was brought to Miss Havisham's all those years ago to serve as a playmate for Estella, but they didn't exactly get along. In fact, Estella was brought up to make men miserable.
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What? It's cool; Herbert will fill him in on the juicy gossip at dinner.
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Herbert's dad is going to be Pip's new tutor and teacher.
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Herbert's a nice guy: he's honest and cheerful, but Pip is pretty sure he'll never be rich or successful. Still, he's a gentleman, and he agrees to help teach Pip how to be one, too.
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He even comes up with a new nickname for Pip—Handel, based on "The Harmonious Blacksmith," by composer Handel.
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Get it? Because Pip was a blacksmith?
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The boys have dinner, and Pip is thrilled beyond belief. There are no grown-ups around, he lives in London, and he has a new BFF. What could be better than this?
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Pip reminds Herbert to tell him Miss Havisham's story.
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This is Herbert's account of Miss Havisham:
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She was a spoiled little only child until her dad (a country gentleman who owned a brewery) secretly married a cook. When the cook died, he told Miss Havisham that she had a half-brother named Arthur. Miss Havisham didn't like this too much.
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Arthur grew up to be a real pain in the rear, and a rebel too. He lived the high life, spending lots of money and creating havoc everywhere he went.
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He and Miss Havisham did not get along very well. In fact, they hated each other's guts.
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When their dad died, he left Arthur a nice fortune, but he left Miss Havisham the big dough.
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Since Miss Havisham was rich and pretty, she was considered quite a catch.
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But it just so happened that she fell in love with the wrong man. The seriously wrong man.
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He wasn't a gentleman at all; he was a rake who convinced her to buy Arthur out of his share of the brewery at a huge cost.
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Herbert's dad, Mr. Pocket, warned his cousin that her beau was up to no good, but she didn't believe him. In fact, she ordered him out of the house and out of her life.
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On the day of her wedding to the gentleman, she received a letter from him calling the whole thing off. No one knows what the letter said, but Miss Havisham went a little crazy after reading that letter and fell very ill. She let the mansion go to ruin, and that was that.
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Apparently, Arthur and the gentleman were in cahoots with each other all along and had meant to rob Miss Havisham of her fortune. They also wanted to embarrass her publicly.
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This ends Herbert's account of Miss Havisham's story, and, yeah, we feel pretty sorry for her.
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But Herbert doesn't know much about Estella.
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Like Pip, Herbert assumes that Miss Havisham is Pip's benefactor and wants Pip to know that he's totally not jealous.
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Pip asks Herbert what he does for a living, and Herbert tells him he's a "capitalist—an insurer of ships" (22.70). Herbert's lifelong dream is to become a shipping merchant and to strike it rich. He dreams of moving to the Far East where life is profitable. As of right now, however, Herbert is waiting for his big break. He works in a counting house, hoping everyday that an opportunity will come his way.
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Pip loves Herbert's idealistic demeanor, but again he can't help but think that Herbert will never strike it rich or be successful.
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London is amazing. It's glittery and delicious and full of all kinds of interesting people and so, so, so much better than the stinky marsh.
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Still, Pip can't help thinking about Joe.
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The boys decide to go to the Pocket home next in Hammersmith. When Pip arrives, he finds Herbert's seven brothers and sisters tumbling every which way on the lawn.
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Mrs. Pocket, Herbert's mother, is reading a book very intensely, and we're not sure how she manages to find time to read with that many kids, but it's cool.
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She asks Pip how his mother is doing, and Pip is saved from having to answer when her youngest child is placed on her lap and she can't figure out how to handle or hold it.
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Ah, this is how she has time to read: her servants, Miss Flopson and Miss Millers, are pretty much like drill sergeants, ordering everyone (including Mrs. Pocket) around.
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Mrs. Pocket is like the Bermuda Triangle of tumbling. Every time one of her children goes near her, they fall. Even the servants trip over her.
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Mrs. Pocket orders naps for everyone (Shmoop too?), and the kiddiewinks are marched inside.
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When Mr. Pocket finally arrives, he looks exactly like what you would expect him to look like: disheveled, grey-haired, and a little discombobulated.
Great Expectations Chapter 23 Summary
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Mr. Pocket welcomes Pip warmly, but his wife is not so interested. The only thing Mrs. Pocket is interested in is her daddy, because her daddy was a knight who believed he was meant to be a baron.
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Mrs. Pocket was raised to be decorative and ornamental, which is not really the kind of lady who you'd think would go off and have eight kids, but, whatevs.
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Pip meets the two other young men he will be studying with at Mr. Pocket's house: Drummle, "an old-looking young man, who was whistling" (23.4), and Startop (a young man who was reading a book while holding his head as though it were about to explode.)
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Pip soon figures out that the Pocket household is run by its servants; namely Flopson and Millers. The servants wear the pants. They have parties and get drunk in the kitchen, they forget to take care of the baby, they order Mrs. Pocket around.
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It's a weird place—very Alice in Wonderland, if you ask us.
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Mr. Pocket is a brilliant scholar and he makes a living teaching and writing books.
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Pip learns from the "toady" neighbor, Mrs. Coiler, that Mrs. Pocket hates that Mr. Pocket has to make a living by teaching others.
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Mrs. Coiler is a snake-like lady who likes to compliment everybody about everything. She's a bit slimy, to be honest.
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Pip learns that Drummle's first name is Bentley and he most likely will become a baron one day. He and Mrs. Pocket hit it off by commiserating about their nobility.
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A Sound of Music moment arrives when the seven Pocket children are summoned to the dinner table. Flopson lines them up, army style.
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Mrs. Pocket wants to hold the baby, but she's really bad at being motherly and, well, careful. The baby almost slips under the table, and then its head crashes on top of the table.
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While she talks to Drummle about her daddy the knight, the baby starts to cry. Jane Pocket, a little, teensy girl, sneaks over to soothe the baby, but Mrs. Pocket yells at her and tells her to go lie down.
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Now the baby is playing with a nutcracker! That's safe!
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Mr. Pocket gives his children each a shilling.
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Despite all this craziness, it's good times in the Pocket household. The boys (Pip, Startop, Drummle, and Herbert) go rowing every evening.
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One night, Pip witnesses yet another domestic crisis while sitting with Mr. and Mrs. Pocket in the living room. A servant tells Mr. Pocket that the cook is drunk and passed out in the kitchen. Mr. Pocket goes down to the kitchen to investigate. He also finds a bunch of pilfered butter grease.
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When he reports back to his wife, Mrs. Pocket is super mad and defends the cook's honor and sobriety. Apparently the cook had always told her she was fit to be a duchess.
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Mr. Pocket is about to go crazy up in here.
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